Auburn Records band Shok Paris will headline a concert on Friday at the Breakfast Club to benefit the Help Hotline Crisis suicide prevention center. JJ Grim, Shades of Remembrance and Electrojector will also play. All of the $5 cover will go to the Help Hotline. Breakfast Club owner Billy Morris donated the venue and will also be donating a portion of the bar proceeds.
A classic power-metal band, Shok Paris were one of Cleveland’s most successful bands of the 1980s. After making their debut in 1984 with Go for the Throat on Cleveland-based Auburn Records, they signed to I.R.S. and released two more albums, 1987’s Steel and Starlight and 1989’s Concrete Killers. In the ’00s, the band has enjoyed a second wind, playing festivals in Germany (they’ll be headlining a night at Headbangers Open Air in Germany in July) and preparing to record a new album.
The show is being organized by Shok Paris guitarist Ken Erb and JJ Grim guitarist John Porter, who have both lost friends and acquaintances to suicide. “It’s amazing the number of people involved in this show who have had a friend or family member involved in a suicide," says Erb in a press release. “We want to bring awareness to the problem and let people know there is help available they can reach out to.”
Says Porter, “I formed JJ GRiM in February of 2008 in response to my brother Doug Elfers committing suicide on May 25, 2003. On that day my world came crashing down. I also lost a cousin to suicide on January 3, 2003. From the beginning of JJ GRiM I thought about doing a benefit for the suicide prevention hot line. Since my brother died, a fire has been burning in me to take this negative and turn it into a positive. I want to help prevent this kind of thing from happening to others.” —Anastasia Pantsios
